Introduction

MiniArt as a company made their name releasing interesting visually appealing and affordable figure sets and they then progressed into diorama elements and vehicles. One of their latest releases, is a set of musical instruments, which includes both the instruments and storage cases in 1/35th scale that will enable the modeller to have the unusual elements to hand.

Review

This offering from MiniArt in 1/35th scale, is provided in one of the end opening cartons, with an artwork covering the contents on the front, and assembly of the contents of the rear. Despite the packaging arriving in good order, I would have preferred a tray and separate lid as a more robust form of packaging. The contents, consists of two identical sprues inside a sealed plastic bag, along with a piece of paper with sheet music printed on it to cut and use. The mouldings are clean and so will be easy to utilise by the modeller.

Provided inside this offering, are a number of accordions, a bass drum, a trumpet, guitar, mandolin and violin. There are also cases for the violins and accordions, and due to the identical sprues you have two of everything. Looking at the approach taken by MiniArt to mould these items, clean up and use will be an easy prospect. Of the items included only ones strikes me as unusual and that is a mandolin, due to this instrument being considered a more medieval item rather than for use in the last century. The guitar provided in the set, I particularly like as it has a separate back plate that has allowed a hollow resonance chamber to be present in the instrument.

Conclusion

This particular release appeals to me greatly, due to the multi use aspect of it. As an example: you could show an armoured vehicle crewman with a guitar in his hands, and he does not have to be playing it, in order for it to be telling a story. The beauty of this offering, is that by simply by removing a weapon from a figures hand, and replacing it with a musical instrument instantly changes the nature of the figure, as so instantly makes figure sets more multi functional. As a result I feel this product from Mini Art, is one of those that every figure modeller should consider grab hold of, due to its multi functional attributes.